Contribution to the development of the Micro-Vertex Detector of the CBM experiment and feasibility study of open charm elliptic flow measurements

CBM, one of the main experiments of the new FAIR accelerator under construction at GSI (Darmstadt), aims at exploring the phase diagram of nuclear matter in the region of high net baryonic densities. The study of the production of open charm particles in heavy ion collisions is one of its main physics topics. The direct measurement of these particles requires the use of a very precise vertex detector. The present thesis is a contribution to the design and development of this detector called MVD (Micro Vertex Detector). A first part of the thesis concerns the assessment, by means of realistic simulations, of the data rate requirements for the sensors which will equip the first MVD generation. The results demonstrate that the expected performance of the sensors will allow CBM carrying out its physics program. A second part deals with the expected performance for the reconstruction of open charm particles, through their hadronic decay, in Au+Au collisions. Detailed simulations allowed demonstrating that the reconstruction of the D⁺ meson decaying into π⁺ π⁺ K^-, for instance, is feasible with a reconstruction efficiency of 2% and a signal/background ratio of 1.5. The statistics expected after two months of data taking has been evaluated to about 6.9 x 10⁴ D-mesons. In the last part, it has been established that this statistics would enable to carry out detailed studies of the integrated elliptic flow of D-mesons. The measurement of the differential elliptic flow of these particles would require, however, higher statistics, and hence the use of more performing sensors. (author)